The Nephilim and the Winchesters (and other such hits)
by Blank Personality
Summary: Shawn is impulsive. The Winchester family's lifestyle was interesting. Cue this story.
1. Chapter 1

So this is going to be cringey. I mean it. I wrote this three years ago and lemme tell you, I wasn't a very good writer then. But hopefully I'll continue it better. If you want me to.

XXX

The first time Dean met him, he had just gotten dumped by the hottest cheerleader in school.

Not the hottest he's seen, personally, but it was still a low blow. And, to add insult to the injury, he'd let slip more than he meant to in a futile attempt to stop himself from feeling very frustrated and humiliated like a playboy who'd gotten exactly what he'd deserved.

"I'm a hero," he said.

Maddison only sneered at him, flipped her hair, and walked away. Swallowing down a lump of anger and shame, Dean glared at anybody who dared leered at their, erm, _interaction_ , and adjusted his leather jacket. He turned away and lifted a foot to stalk off, but before he could, four words. Four words literally made him stop in his tracks.

"I'm sure you are."

The voice was not sarcastic. Or rather, the most sincere one can be without actually meaning what was said. The words were light and cut-dry, blurted out by a calm mouth connected to a nervous brain, and was said so blandly, a hint of condescending relaxed toning the sentence into an impossible mono-humored sing-song that was so subtle, a part of Dean instead had the inkling to believe him instead of getting offended. It wasn't scathing, mocking, or even absentminded. Also, it was said by a dude.

"Excuse me?" Dean whirled around, took one look at the speaker, and paused. "Have we met before?"

"Your dad's met mine," the guy said. "Shawn. Spencer. Hi."

Dean looked him up and down. He went with Dad to interview the officer. He remembered Henry's hard eyes and no-nonsense attitude. Shawn was the exact opposite. Childish rebellion, naïve ambition and a sort of ADHD-affected air around him that you simply couldn't get from non-ADHD people. They probably went to class together. "Hold up, you're Detective Spencer's kid?"

"Yup. I know, right?" he closed his open locker with a loud _spukt_ ing sound and spread his arms, giving Dean a full view of his clothes and obvious makeup. Sneakers, too-tight black jeans, black T-shirt with silver highlights and design, and a thin cotton jacket over that. Despite the goth look, the kid rather reminded Dean of a picture Sam had showed him once of a little duckling drenched in oil. He looked like somebody who just went ahead with the trend without actually wanting to. If somebody had asked Dean, he would've said that it didn't suit Shawn, with that bashful half-grin of his screamed _goofy_ all over the place. "Not exactly what you'd expect from a cop's kid, huh? Then again, _this_ is not exactly what'd I thought the son of an ex-military man would be like either. I kind of expected more 'sirs' and uptightness of the 'no relations while on duty' kind."

"Piss off" Dean eventually spat, before turning a finger up in an undoubtedly rude gesture. He needed to pick Sam up. He had no time for this. Even as he turned his back though, curiosity couldn't help but burn through him. He dismissed it when he figured Shawn must've seen the military pouch in the Impala's trunk or something.

"I know, I know," Shawn laughed. "Family calls. Tell you what, I'll come walk with you."

"I would really prefer it if you don't."

"Great!" Shawn exclaimed, and skipped over to stand next to him.

"But your house's in the other direction," Dean tried, exasperated. He didn't want to get angry at this guy. Not when he'd already had one fit not five minutes ago.

"The longer the trip! Even better."

XXX

Dean tried to lose Shawn during the journey to the junior high section, he really did. He ducked and weaved, quickening his pace then hiding behind trashcans or trees or whatever, gave himself more time by taking detours around the campus. Nothing worked. Each time, Shawn would pop up again and again beside him, unruffled in the least, looking for all the world like he didn't even notice Dean trying with all his skills and training to allude him.

It infuriated Dean.

Eventually though, scowling up the extension of a shed on top of the school building where Shawn Spencer sat swinging his legs and waiting, Dean couldn't help but become begrudgingly impressed by the random stranger who decided to stick to his side because of one slip of the tongue on his part. Mentally, he resigned himself to having a tail for the rest of the afternoon. Whatever. He'll just bore the guy to going away later. That, or Dad will yell at them both.

 _I'm a hero._

"Alright," he breathed out, nostrils flaring slightly. "Come on down. You got me. Enough of these games."

"Games?" Hair billowing behind his head like some sort of out-of-the-way, odd flag, Shawn tilted his head in confusion, though his eyes (could be brown, could be blue, could be green, black, grey) shone with mischief.

 _I know you are._

"What games?" He asked, grinning.

He jumped down from the ledge with a practiced grace that even Dean could envy. Shawn shot him a smile that, with the right look and air, could honestly probably get the guy anything he wanted. Like Sammy's puppy eyes, but cooler.

Then they walked, side by side, on their way to pick up the youngest Winchester.

Dean was proud to have been able to say that he lasted the whole half of the trip before he grew too curious to let it lie. It was against the Winchester code, to be honest, to admit to someone your feelings, no matter what they were. But Dean was still sixteen years old, forgive him.

"What did you mean, earlier?" He asked gruffly. His shoes scuffed the ground as they stopped walking, standing together in the middle of a courtyard. The school library could be seen on one side, and Dean guessed he should ask the question that's been bugging him all of the past ten minutes before he'd had an old hag hush him up in the one constant place that consistently smells like dust and parchment. "When you sort of, ah, agreed that I was a. A... "

"Hero?" Shawn walked past him and twirled around. His thin black cotton jacket with the hood and silver linings swished as he moved. "C'mon. Do you really think now would be the time to ask that question? Poor Sammy's getting lonely in there!"

"Shut up," Dean snarled, jumping back to create some space between Shawn and him. "I never gave my brother's name."

"You doodle it in class like crush initials," Shawn replied bluntly. "It's the first contact on speed dial in your phone, right behind 'Dad'. And, if that's not enough for someone of your calibre, a 'Sam Peters' transferred here in accelerated seventh grade the same day you did. Same date, same surname, correct age and grade. Duh?"

"O...kay," Dean uncurled his fingers from around the emergency half-iron, half-silver blade Dad gave him for his last birthday, and sheepishly withdrew his hand. "Sorry 'bout that."

"S'okay," Shawn waved his hand, and suddenly Dean had the impression that he got that reaction a lot. "And as for your question…Your first question," he shrugged. "I just do."

Dean suddenly got the impression that Shawn was tired. Not just marathon-type tired, because suddenly Shawn was that too. But he was repetitive-type tired too. Dean wondered if Shawn was tired of trying to explain himself.

 _Please,_ he found himself internally wanting. Maybe not in such girly words, but close enough. _Take the time to explain._ "Let's go get my brother then," he said instead, and jogged his way to up the few stairways leading up to the library.

The space instead wasn't as big as it was deep. The ceiling was barely high enough to avoid grazing the top of Dean's hair.

He noticed it when Shawn took a few seconds longer to catch up. "Sam!" he called instinctively, before quieting down when the librarian - a barrel-built woman under imposing horn-rimmed glasses - glared at him above her pulp romance novel.

"Sorry," Shawn, stepping forward, said in a low voice. "My friend over here, ah... he's had a long day. The love of his life had just rejected him in front of his whole…" his eyes flickered down to the cover of the librarian's book, "clan."

"Oh," the woman gained an understanding look in her eyes as Dean started very pointedly glaring at the back of Shawn's head. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, then softened and focused uncomfortably on Dean simultaneously with Shawn. "Right. Your brother's the nice little boy with an eye for horror is he? In isle five, my boy. And, I know your heart is hurting. But just remember that it never was... " she took a deep breath and shuddered. Dean resisted the urge to take a step back and disinfect his eyes with molten lava. "Love… at true sight."

"...Right," he managed, and snagged Shawn by the arm. "C'mon, _babe_ , let's go get Sammy so we can go home quick."

"Hey! - what?"

"Ooh!" The old librarian's cheeks were tinted pink all the way until she disappeared, out of sight, behind the curve of a bookshelf. Shawn was just confused.

They found Sam sitting bunched behind an unending pile of ancient-looking tomes and volumes titled things in Latin. "Man, how'd your school get this many books?" Dean said, softly enough not to be heard, thankfully. Sammy jumped and slammed shut the book he'd been reading. His hand shot to his side, where Dean knew his own dagger was strapped to.

"Jesus, - Dean!" It didn't take long for fear to turn to irritation. "You're late. And this is…"

"Shawn Spencer, but my friend calls me the Pineapple Lover," he took a long bow. A small smile stretched itself across Sammy's face, and he laughed. Dean immediately developed a stronger liking to Shawn. In his mind, not only had the guy proved himself to not be a total loser, but he was trustworthy too, as Sam usually had a freaky sixth sense about that kind of thing. The people he didn't like usually turnt out to be traitors or other monsters, or have an affinity of strangling other people for fun. Shawn gestured at the thick leather-bound books Dean knew was research for Dad. "Need help with that? I speak five languages fluently. One of them just happens to be Latin."

"Really?" Sam's smile turned unbelieving. "Prove it. I'm having trouble at these parts…"

"Ahem," Dean 'cleared' his throat. "I'll just be in the 'adult' section, if you don't mind. Sammy, on you." He walked off, shooting one more look behind his shoulder at the boys. One physical, one mental. Neither of them gave him mind. It's not like Dean knew how to read Latin anyways. He idly wandered between the shelves and walked out of sight soon enough.

"See… this one here, is all very good. It's shorter too. But, it's apparently only able to be used for one very particular kind of demon - a young one. One that still sticks to reason and habit, and hasn't yet lost _all_ of their marbles yet. Maybe just most of their soul-marbles, but not all. Eventually they're gonna slip and fall on the fallen marbles and drop them all anyway, but that's not the point…"

"What about this one?"

Shawn took a moment to read through the page. "That's for the older ones, yeah. They either kill and torture for the sake of it, or, they serve somebody. Anybody. The king of Hell, their Creator, Satan… you name it, they fear it. Say it out loud for me?"

Almost a whole minute passed while Sam read it out loud for Shawn to hear. The younger brother didn't mind having Shawn sort of be his teacher for the day (Dean used to do that for him before Sam bypassed his level of general _normal_ knowledge, like things about maths and stuff). He learnt Latin from an old dictionary and various computer from various places. He didn't exactly know how to pronounce everything. "'... _Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos._ "'

"Right" Shawn praised. "That was good. Really good, for someone who learnt a whole language on their own. Amazing, even. But you know that merged A and E together, over there." His finger landed on the word ' _æternæ',_ which was just between ' _eisque'_ and ' _perditionìs'._ Two other words Sam had no idea how to say. "You articulate it like a parrot."

"So you're saying I should stop sounding like a parrot?" Sam guessed, trying to be offended at having his voice be compared to one, and failing.

"No," Shawn said patiently. "I'm saying you need to sound _more_ like a parrot, Sam. _More._ And the front Cs are pronounced S-es. The back Cs stay how they are."

XXX

So yeah. That was the first time the Winchester brothers ever met Shawn Spencer.

Shawn went home eventually after Sam had nothing more to ask him. He was confused by the man's appearance. It changed during the time they were together.

When Dean walked in with Shawn in tow, he was one of those goths that popped up in every high school like always. When he waved goodbye to the guy another two hours two hours later, with the setting behind their backs, All of the makeup that had previously masked his face was gone. Sam could see Shawn's light tan, like everyone who lived in California. His jeans were still black, as were his shoes, but his jacket was suddenly a plaid overall tied around his waist, and his shirt had become bright green.

Sam glanced at Dean when he noticed all of this, about to open his mouth to point all of this out - but Dean hadn't seemed to notice anything, so Sam figured he'd just been hanging around weird crowds for too long.

At first, Sam was fully prepared to ignore him. But then Shawn told him he knew how to read Latin… and apparently Russian, Chinese and Spanish along with English. Wow.

That night, Sam gave Dad a copy of the chant, and the accompanying ritual, and pointed out what Shawn pointed out to him.

"Great job Sam," Dad smiled at him for the first time in what seemed like forever. "Thank you."

XXX

"What are you doing here?"

Shawn popped up from behind the barrel with a rackish grin on his for once non-painted face. His hair, still long with bangs that seem to always try its best to annoy him by getting in his eyes a lot, was a disheveled mess on top of his head.

"Hi, Dean," he said breathless. Again, the hunter-to-be couldn't help but be remembered of ducklings, and imagined feathers flying around in disarray despite himself. "Where's the demon? Late to the party?"

Dean looked behind him nervously. Sam was twelve and technically old enough to come to hunts, so he was here on that occasion, helping set up the Devil's Trap to catch the sonava when it comes for the bait.

"You are not supposed to be here," he grounded out, only half-concerned for his own hide. Which was a pretty warm greeting, if you considered a) how loud Dean's father could be if he wanted to and b) the fact that literally Dean had only met this guy today.

"Fine, yes, I know, I know," Shawn sobered up, but Dean had a feeling he was only doing it for show. "But I… I don't know Dean-o. I don't know."

"Dean!"

The older boy bit back a curse and Shawn shut up. "In a minute, sir," Dean called. Then, he hissed under his breath. "Hide in there, don't come out. Keep your mouth, ears and eyes closed, and don't open them until I come get you. Stay quiet. I'm kicking your ass for this later, Spence."

Dean was telling himself not to panic as he walked back to stand at the perimeter of the twenty foot in diameter circle. Shawn wasn't his responsibility. He didn't care for the foolish. If the guy died tonight because of his own stupidity, then so be it. Nobody told him to come tail the new guy. Dean hoped.

And, if he becomes mentally scarred from the events that are about to unfold (completely everyday life for Dean and his own family now of course), then he wouldn't care either way. Shawn would most probably forget it as a crazy dream or something, like normal people tend to do.

Oh, who was he kidding? Dean would beat himself up about it for years.

He got in place. The bait was ready. The trap was set. Dean looked over to Sam's supposed hiding spot. Then his dad's. His gaze lingered on the off-put barrel to the side where Shawn lay.

A man appeared rounding a corner.

XXX

Sam wasn't sure what happened, exactly.

It was all going so, so well. And then it wasn't.

There was a break in the trap. The demon got free. Dean got thrown back and knocked out when his head collided none-all-too-gently with a trashcan. Dad was being held with one hand onto a far wall, with so much force it seemed he couldn't even open his mouth.

Sam's lower lip trembled. He shrunk into himself, eyes frantically flickering between his dad's, Dean's prone form, repeat. _Stay calm,_ he told himself, as Dad always told him. _You can't afford to panic on a hunt. Clear your head. Remember the chant._

"Ex - _Exorcizamus te,_ " he stammered, " _omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incurs -_ "

The demon's eyes bled purely to black, and Sam's throat closed in on itself. He watched on in horror, completely frozen in fear, as the demon stretched out its other hand - its free hand - and made Sam fly towards it. Its hand closed around his jacket collar.

"HEY!" a voice suddenly shouted, somewhere to Sam's right. It sounded familiar, somehow, and it wasn't until he was able to get his eyes off the demon's that he would realise why. For now,, he merely trusted the confused look his father's face suddenly bore. Confused, he noted, but also relieved.

The demon snarled. "Who are you?"

In response, Sam could only hear beeping, like keys on a phone. Then, a slightly staticy voice articulated, perfectly clear, perfectly loud: " _EXORCIZAMUS TE -"_

The demon shrieked and rolled its head, and somewhere, something shattered behind Sam's ears. Still the recording chanted.

" _\- OMNIS IMMUNDUS SPIRITUS, OMNIS SATANICA POTESTAS, OMNIS INCURSIO INFERNALIS ADVERSARII,"_

Another speaker blew to bits, this time just a few feet hidden from where Dean's head lay bruised but not bleeding, thankfully. The voice pushed on.

" _OMNIS LEGIO, OMNIS CONGREGATIO ET SECTA DIABOLICA… ERGO, DRACO MALADICTE ET OMNIS LEGIO DIABOLICA, ADJURAMUS TE…_

The demon was weakening. Sam could feel it, Dad could feel it too. He was moving his fingers, rolling his shoulder… The chant was strong only in Sam's right eardrum.

" _CESSA DECIPERE HUMANAS CREATURAS, EISQUE ÆTERNÆ PERDITIONĺS VENENUM PROPINARE…_

Sam could almost wriggle free now. He prayed that this trick, whoever set it up, would last until he could at least get his mouth moving again.

" _VADE, SATANA, INVENTOR ET MAGISTER OMNIS FALACIÆ, HOSTIS HUMANÆ SALUTIS… HUMILIARE SUB POTENTI MANU DEI; -_ "

The last one broke. It didn't matter. Sam pried the hand holding him up open and hit the ground running, and yelling.

" _CONTREMISCE ET EFFUGE,"_ he bellowed, looking over his shoulder, " _INVOCATO A NOBIS SANCTO ET TERRIBILI NOMINE…"_

" _QUEM INFERI TREMUNT… AB INSIDIIS DIABOLI, LIBERA NOS, DOMINE,_ " Dad continued without missing a beat, when Sam finally reached Dean and crouched beside his older brother, and had gotten too choked up to continue. For a fraction of a second, Sam was terribly tempted to raise his head when the unmistakable sound of a head hitting pavement reached his ears. He did.

Dad was pushing himself off the ground, but was frozen in the movement like somebody had clicked the pause button. His eyes were bigger than saucers.

Sam looked at the demon. He could see why.

Behind the man with the black eye was the guy Dean had following him that day he came to pick Sam up from the library. Earlier, Sam could've _sworn_ Shawn's eyes were a warm, good-humored shade of hazel, but now they were glowing like mini-supernovas were imbedded behind them, shining an ethereal blue. And when he spoke, he spoke for all his life as if he'd been speaking every and all languages for many a lifetime.

"Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire," Shawn said, his expression hard as stone; no trace of the smiles that seemed to have come so easily to him before remained, "te rogamus, audi nos."

Demonic clouds of ash exploded out of the man's mouth. Gently, Shawn caught the limp body in his arms and set the man down. When he looked back up, he stared directly at Sam with completely normal eyes, still devoid of a smile, and nodded once at him. Dad was completely ignored.

Then he moved to crouch next to Dean, crossing all the way across the alleyway as he did. The candles and moonlight made his appearance even more otherworldly, making Sam tense and wary. But Shawn seemed to have sensed that, and walked as one would around a wild animal. He slowly crouched next to him, and put two fingers to Dean's forehead.

Sam jerked forward, alarmed, but Shawn merely closed his eyes and murmured, "He should be okay."

And when Sam looked at his brother again, it looked like it. A little bit more color was in his face. He quickly felt the bump at the back of the head and noticed immediately that it wasn't as distinct as it was.

"Thank you," he breathed.

"Your brother _so_ owes me for this," Shawn smirked, and looked more like himself at that moment than he would care to notice. "Tell him that. Five speakers and a new phone. Otherwise…" his lips came down a bit, mellowing to a more sincere kind of crooked smile. "Look after each other, okay? I'd like to say you'll be seeing me again but... Well. You'll see."

He stood up, and left.

XXX

When it boiled down to it at the end of the day, Shawn really didn't know why he did what he did. How he'd managed to plan that whole thing with the recorded exorcism and such. All he knew was that he'd gotten one heck of a headache when he tried staying home that evening, started walking, and ended up in a barrel with Dean Winchester telling him to stay down and don't look. The moment he uttered that last line of the chant, he felt more complete than he would be happy to admit. Or think about. Ever, again.

He did two hours later.

Shawn had left a goodbye note to his dad on top of his bed, like he'd seen in a few teenage runaway clichés. Packed a backpack, duffle bag and other essential things in another bag, gotten on the bike he'd blown his college funds on (he's just waiting for his father to notice), and was all ready to ride off in the middle of the night. Badass, right?

After all, Shawn was not one to let questions be left unanswered.

So it almost, _almost,_ came as a little bit less than a surprise when word comes it that Shawn had disappeared (ran away, been kidnapped, whatever) at around approximately, give or take an hour at most, the same time the Winchesters moved out of town.

"Goodbye, Santa Barbara."


	2. Chapter 2

It had been two weeks since Shawn's decision to leave Santa Barbara, and already he could tell that it was going to be an educational adventure.

There was a routine for him to follow that he designed himself (while eating pretzels in a barber shop somewhere in Arizona) specifically so he could learn as much as he could in as little time as he could.

As soon as he reached a town, step one would be to steal a local officer's police scanner. Then get a motel room exactly two rooms away from the one the Winchesters would be staying at. He said 'would' because sometimes Shawn gets there with his bike faster than the Impala.

Step three, and this was a recent one – salt the doors, windows, lie the demon trap under a mat in front of the door. Search for hex bags, clean and load some guns with consecrated iron, sharpen silver knife, and then figure out how John Winchester figured out there was something in town. And then play the man at the game of guessing what creature was killing the locals.

This was where the learning part comes in. Shawn had currently no way of telling apart the fake lore and the real one.

He was slowly catching on more and more every day.

"Werewolf," he decided out loud after a while, after thinking for a while about the latest radio in from the closest town where the Winchesters happened to be lodging that night. "Definitely."

While he prepared his special silver knife – probably the most expensive thing he had ever owned, including his mother's locket containing their family's picture taken when Shawn was seven and things had been happy – Shawn looked through his notes again, closing his eyes and remembering, just to make sure.

"Just a simple wolf," John's voice crackled in from Shawn's other radio. His personal one – the one that he'd designed to automatically hack on to the transmitting device that can pick up sound, and a few that technically couldn't, nearest a tracking chip he'd planted between the seams located under the collar of Dean's leather jacket. "You don't need to come. One bullet, and I'll be home. Won't take long, but –"

"Best be careful," Dean interjected, the accompanying impatient nod practically audible. His voice was fainter as he was probably standing farther from whatever it was that was letting Shawn basically spy on the family. "Check the doors, windows, keep the shotgun close, and above all."

"Watch out for Sammy." Shawn mouthed along with John and Dean's simultaneous words. The youngest Winchester hadn't said a word throughout. Shawn guessed he was in the shower or something.

His grip tightened on his knife. Really, he was being modest. The weapon he'd stolen from an odd ancient-family-tribute museum and probably wouldn't get missed much except by bankrupt and desperate future generations, but it still felt wrong to use it somehow. Shawn justified the thievery by giving the priceless artifact a better fate of being used to slay lycanthropes, to prevent them from harming any innocent civilians (or cattle), rather than leaving it to sit in a dusty wooden pedestal for all its useful days.

And it really was beautiful. A knife was probably not the right word to call it. The blade itself, straight and strangely triangular, was as long as his forearm, and wickedly sharp at all times even before further sharpening. On the oddly shining metal were intricate designs better suited for fine art than slaughtering, trailing all the way to the leather-wrapped handle. There was no guard, but Shawn didn't mind. The possibility of him cutting his own hand by accident hadn't even crossed his head before Shawn had grabbed the blade off the rotted wooden pedestal and took the whole thing back with him.

And now was going to be its second job. Shawn felt like he should be taking pictures. Make a scrapbook. _Knife's first kill outside California!_ Or something.

The faint sound of a door closing alerted Shawn that he should probably start moving as well. After a few seconds of making sure he wasn't being too obvious, of course.

There was a rust-stained full-body mirror behind the door, barely hanging onto the walls by a few nails. This must be one of the nicer motels. Shawn took another good look at himself - counting _one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi_ under his breath - and was assured that he looked, once again, nothing like his old self. Or his new self. He looked every bit like a local kid, though, which he guessed was alright.

The bags under his eyes probably did the trick. And the frays tugging at the edges and corners of his dark green hoodie (more for the sake of camouflage that fashion), and the acid-washed jeans he had thought to bring along because they were baggy enough to run in, thankfully. Every normal person that walked by would immediately feel the urge to grip their bags and check their pockets, but John Winchester would take one look and dismiss him without another thought, and to Shawn, that was all that mattered.

 _Nothing to see here, folks,_ Shawn thought as he stepped out the door and locked it behind him, patting his silver knife under his overcoat with one hand.

Absently, he turned and began following John Winchester's trail.

XXX

It wasn't a question of paranoia more than mostly justified caution. People didn't come back from the navy dimmer, after all. John could feel it, like an itch at the back of his neck. Every time he turned a corner, there would be an urge to look back, double-check, make sure there wasn't actually someone there following him down the road.

John didn't want to have to cut down (just an expression, of course) a kid looking for money, especially not while he was on a hunt. Or watch him get torn up _by_ the hunt. Or actually have the hunt in the middle of the town.

No, thank you.

"Listen, kid," he finally called out, skidding the pavement with the bottom of his boots. "Stay in school! Or, if you're not going to go back to school, find someone else to mug for Pete's sake. I don't have anything you want."

There was no answering shuffle. No beat-up thug dejectedly stomping out an alley. _This is stupid_ , John thought, just before he did some stomping himself, letting his feet take him to the mouth of the second alleyway to the right. His hand was outstretched, ready to grab the collar of a jacket or a leather jacket maybe.

He was not expecting to see thin air.

"Hey - Hey, old man! Yeah, you!" a disheveled-looking face poked out of a window, two stories up. Well, there was a hoodie on the boy, and dark, messy-hair sticking out behind his head where they've been lying on a pillow for the last few hours. Dark shadows underneath bleary eyes. "Holler somewhere else would ya? Some people are trying to get some sleep here!"

The guy fit every detail of John's mental image of what his stalker looked like - the sounds of sneakers scuffing pavement twenty feet away, ragged breathing when John increased his pace, even the flash of green in his memory he could've sworn he'd seen. But… that wasn't right. The kid looked like he had been where he was supposed to be the whole night - like he lived in that room, went to sleep in that room, and didn't leave anywhere to go stalking hunters with silver bullets in their guns.

He frowned and craned his neck, staring intensely at the kid - in college, maybe - studying late into the night. John waved at him in a _sorry-okay-bye_ sort of gesture.

He shook his head and continued walking down the street, towards the forest.

XXX

 _That was a close call_ , Shawn breathed a sigh of relief.

There was another lesson he had to re-learn from Papa Winchester: Never underestimate. Anyone. Ever.

Even if they were a seven-foot-tall hybrid supernatural being that could only be killed with a stab to the heart. Even if you thought there was no possible way it could do something. Even if you know something you thought they didn't. You were always wrong.

Shawn's Dad's voice lectured inside his head, while the real one slept safely and soundly in his own bed some fifty miles away.

 _At least he won't know how I die, when I do,_ Shawn thought, which provided some comfort, even as he lined up for the kill, tensing his crouching legs as much as he could to jump. _In 3… 2… 1…_

John was splayed out on the forest floor, arms braced against his back. His own silver dagger was lying approximately three feet away from the creature, who was standing hunched and blood-matted, claws sharp preparing to rip through skin, shift back the ribcage to get to its prize.

Shawn would have to risk it. He didn't want this to be the first night he would have to go back to the motel without having to wait for John to go in first.

He pounced.

Fingers dragged past the foliage of sharp branches and broken twigs on the ground, getting decently cut up in the process. Shawn barely noticed the pain. As soon as the tips of his digits brushed up against the cool metallic surface of the knife handle, he curled his palm around it and _leapt_.

The wolf roared in surprise and fury as blood suddenly gushed out from among the fur on its chest. The stab was a bulls-eye, hitting its target right in the middle of the heart.

"Bingo," Shawn smirked, landing on all fours as the werewolf began to lose its footing and fall. It settled roughly in front of him with a thud. "Or maybe it's supposed to be 'Hallelujah!' or something. 'Violá'? No… Oh, ooh!" he jumped up to full height and clapped his hands together, biting his lower lip in excitement. "'Ta-da!' …Hmm, maybe not…"

"Wha – who?" John was sure he was hallucinating. He squinted and looked around for a bright light, wondering perhaps he was closer to death than he thought if near-death was this delusional.

"Papa Winchester!" Shawn yelped, and immediately all traces of his joking demeanor was gone. He dropped down on his knees in front of the older man, poking and prodding at the three deep gashes running down John's front. "This looks bad… think you can walk back?"

"No?" John replied bluntly, slapping the curious hands away as he swallowed his grunts of pain. "And… did you just call me 'Papa Winchester'?

"Alright, Papa Winchester," Shawn stood up, grimacing apologetically. Before John could ask, the younger man - boy, really, couldn't have been any older than Dean - was taking off his sweatshirt, revealing his almost concave stomach and the bottom part of a set of too-prominent ribs before his plain black shirt succumbed to gravity and straightened down. He took his knife to the garment and reduced it to strips of tight weave cotton. Tugging one end between his hands experimentally, he nodded his satisfaction and turned to John. His shrug was most apologetic. "This might hurt."

XXX

They were both quiet the whole way home. John more so, as despite the makeshift bandage he was actually still bleeding a lot.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, progressively feeling more and more tired as the second ticked by. He thought at one point the car stopped in front of a drug store and the kid walked out, and a few minutes later, following the sound of the car door closing, slid back into the driver's seat as he casually threw an armload of bandages, bottles of disinfectant, surgical tape and an assortment of pills at the backseat. Then the Impala roared to life and pulled out, and John was dazedly amazed that no alarms or angrily yelling store clerk chased after.

He didn't even protest much at the fact that a total stranger was now driving the car next to him, or that he knew which motel they were staying in. Everything made sense, right now, in that sleepy way that dreams often came with.

"Just focus on taking the next breath," the kid murmured. Or the voice might had originated from John's mind. "We'll be there soon."

They arrived. John was hauled, none-all-too-gently, favouring speed over comfort, to the door. They knocked.

A few moments later, the door swung open and John could feel his saviour's arm tense under him as he was forced to look down the barrel of a shotgun.

"Stand down, Dean," he grouched begrudgingly.

"Yeah, stand down," the stranger parroted, almost jokingly, and John regretted that he was too tired to snap back at him. So instead he made himself heavier.

The two faltered, Dean obviously in worry.

"Well, don't just stand there," the stranger called. "Help me get your old man inside."

XXX

Shawn dumped the contents of his arms onto Dean's bed unceremoniously. It was a seemingly random assortment of medical supplies - everything from cold medicine to hydrogen peroxide to rolls of surgical sutures - that he retrieved somehow from the Impala's backseat. The noise of bottles and whatnot clattering against each other made Sam twitch, shuffle a little under his sheets, but he stayed asleep, thankfully.

"It's you," Dean said was something non-recognisable in his voice.

"It is _moi_ ," Shawn repeated without thinking, as he poured out rubbing alcohol to an empty styrofoam coffee cup and dropped a hooked needle into it. He paused, genuine surprise colouring his features. "Wait, you remember me?"

"Uh, yeah," the other boy scoffed, the 'Duh' remaining unsaid but obvious in the air between them. "Sam talked about you for days, even after we left Santa Barbara. Dad never believed him though."

He frowned at the increasingly unconscious man. Shawn followed his line of sight and with a hushed curse, shook his head and finished prepping for stitches. He might or might not be glad for the excuse to not answer. A few seconds later, thick, clean thread was through one end of the needle.

"So, one of us expose the wounds and hold him down in case he gets… skittish," his eyebrows twitched at the unsatisfactory choice of wording, "while the other sews him up. Your choice, bud."

"I'll… Have you ever done stitches before?"

"Eh, no. But I've seen people on TV do it, so how hard can it be, right?"

Dean looked very much alarmed. "Not right. I'll do the stitching up, thank you."

"Wash your hands first, darn it. And you're welcome!"

When he was back, the wound had been carefully exposed by way of snipping al offending cloth out of the general vicinity, and cleaned out with wet wipes and alcohol - the kind you can't drink. The gashes were of medium depth, but pulled wide open as a result of being the work of animalistic claws.

Dad was completely knocked out for the count by blood loss by this time, which the two took as a good thing. Instead of cautiously holding the entire of the older man down, Shawn instead helped Dean hold the cuts together. The silence they lapsed into from concentrating far from being comfortable in the least, but it wasn't awkward or empty, either. Neither had the urge to break the night's hush.

After they were done bandaging the new stitches up, both worked together to haul the older man to a bed, then collapsed simultaneously on the motel couch.

The silence persisted. And yet neither developed motivation to talk yet.

Finally, it was Dean who opened his mouth first. He parted his lips a couple of time, doing his best impression of a fish out of water as he scrambled internaly for something to keep the air occupied. But when he did speak, words too slow and awkward and hesitant, like his voice was still testing out the dingy motel atmosphere, he wasn't sure if maybe it would have been better if he had stayed silent.

"Sam told me your eyes glowed. And you healed me. So you're some kind of -" He gestured halfheartedly with his hands. "...Not-human."

There was a pregnant pause. Dean's expression tightened involuntarily. He didn't want to gut any one tonight. Not someone who just saved his father life and, if Sam was right, their lives as well.

Actually, he was pretty sure he didn't want to gut Shawn. Period.

Said stranger shrugged, trying to break the ice hanging between them. There was a stillness at his shoulders though, one that Dean supposed he couldn't blame the other boy for having. "Not sure," he murmured. "Are you going to kill me if I say yes?"

"That's not exactly a vote of confidence."

Neither laughed. Eventually, Dean sighed, and he turned to Shawn with tired eyes.

"What are you doing here, man? This is way too far from home. What happened? You hadn't been a hunter two weeks ago, had you?"

"No," Shawn answered honestly, before he could tell himself to lie. "You came and something happened and I decided this for myself." He didn't even need to look at Dean to tell what he was thinking. Damned martyr shtick, always blaming himself for all possible things going wrong - "It's not your fault," he said lamely. There was more he could say, but it was more that just wouldn't come to his head. "It's not. Really. Believe me."

"Believe you? Like hell I will!"

For whatever reason, Shawn couldn't take his eyes off of Dean's face. His brows were knitted together. His nostrils were flared. He was worried. True, genuine worry from one Dean Winchester, and Shawn didn't think that that happened a lot with him outside of family.

There was a rustle of sheets as Sam turned in his sleep; Dean's voice lowered unbelievably quickly. Shawn blinked and broke eye contact, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Listen man. I know, it looks like fun, sounds like one of those crazy paranormal things you'd see on reality TV or something, you think it's all interesting. I bet it'd make you sound real cool when you go off telling it to get girls and stuff, but I'll tell you right now that its not -"

One and a half seconds were filled with Shawn's high pitched, unmanly peals of laughter that weren't so much from genuine amusement as they were disbelieving. "Dude, I stabbed a creature of the night that ate out humans' hearts for dinner and am now covered in its blood. I just helped you sew a man back together and you still think I'm here cause I wanna be cool?" He paused and leaned back in his seat, considering. "Though, okay, yeah, this hunter thing is _way_ cooler than being goth."

"You don't understand!" Dean hissed, like a heated metal can just barely keeping itself from exploding. "This is what I was afraid of! I should never have answered you in that hallway, never should have - never should have even said anything about being a _goddamned_ \- _hero_ -!"

"And this is exactly what _I_ was afraid of," Shawn countered quietly. "This is what you do all the time, isn't it? Find ways to somehow blame yourself? Jebus, isn't that tiring."

A pause.

Dean ran the flat of his tongue against his front teeth, expression telling Shawn just how much he appreciated being interrupted, before closing his mouth and sighing.

"Besides, you said it yourself. I'm a kind of… not-human." And at that point Shawn wasn't quite sure what kind of face either of them were making anymore.

"Look," he said then, almost growling, almost nervous and scared but maybe it was only like that to Shawn because that was how he was feeling at that moment. It suddenly occurred to him that the Winchesters knew he was there now. They were aware of his presence (and a part of him so desperately wanted to just continue on tailing them, whether they knew about it or not) and they were sure to not be happy about it when they put together his little method for getting started in the hunter business. "I-I'm not ganking you, alright?"

Shawn made a vaguely disgusted face as he mouthed the word 'ganking' to himself, as if he had just bitten into a lemon. Dean either ignored this or pretended he didn't see.

"And I'm not kicking you out, either. It's not like you have anywhere else to go, right?"

"...Right," Shawn relented, deciding not to mention that he had that 'borrowed' empty motel room on the other side of the building, still with his stuff in it. The Winchesters used stolen credit cards and killed on a daily basis, but he still wasn't quite sure he knew where they stood on moral grounds. "So you're gonna let me stay on the couch for the night. Right. Are," he made a gesture in the general direction of the door, as if he was gonna get up, but then decided against it. "Are you sure?"

"Shut up and go to bed, pretty boy." Dean got up and threw his leather jacket at Shawn. The latter was thankful the blood on his own now half-sleeveless jacket was all dry. It would flake, but at least it wouldn't rub off on the other's _…_ huh. Since when did he care?

"Speak for yourself," was what he said out loud instead. "And shouldn't it be 'go to couch'?"

The only response he got was a spare pillow to the face. Dean would be sharing Sam's on his bed.

Shawn chuckled quietly and waved a hand at the guy before letting it curl up and fall to his side. The lights went out. Aw. He trusted him.

"Goodnight, Winchester," he whispered quietly.

XXX

 **I'LL LEAVE NOW**

The note was the only sign that Shawn was ever there in the first place, hastily scrawled in block letters on cheap motel stationary that Dean hadn't even realised they had.

Well, that, and the sudden stock of medical supplies that were on their hands. John begrudgingly kept them when no reports of theft were called in on the police monitor despite it being well after opening time.

They left the little town, and though Sam was hopeful enough (after he was done being mad when he realised he had slept through the entire encounter) to think that the three words were only meant as a parting message as he left their motel room, Dean wasn't so sure. And when he noticed the lack of a tiny speck - a motorcycle, now he realised - in the distance that had always just followed them in their rearview mirror, well. He just shook his head and muttered luck.

He never said goodbye.


End file.
